When will we fight poverty in America with as much commitment as we bail out corporations. Where are our priorities? MLK Jr. speaks about the link between education and economic opportunities. He also calls on presidential candidates to make poverty an issue in the 2008 election. View the video here.
Harsh Realties of "critical needs" students exists beyond the borders of Mississippi.
The talk about Kennedy's visit to the Delta echoed one theme that I have heard throughout all of the talks: leadership matters. The type of leadership determines the group's success or lack thereof.
If I had only two words—one phrase—to describe Mr. Barnes talk (both of them) I would use the following: passionately candid. He spoke in a straightforward manner about his experiences working in the “critical needs” areas in the Delta. I took away a few key comments that all future teachers should know, especially those individuals who plan to teach children from poverty-stricken environments.
1. YOU set the stage from day 1.
One of the most (if not the most important preparation) for a successful school year is classroom management. Mr. Barnes instructed the first years, “If you do not gain control over your class within the first two days of school” then you’re in trouble. “The students will test you.” You have heard the saying, “If you give them an inch they’ll take a yard.” The discipline, teaching and learning begins with YOU, “the teacher,” he repeatedly stated for emphasis as the teachers sat listening like perfectly behaved students.
2. Do not assume or stereotype your students. But ask, “Why?”
A few weeks ago I had a candid conversation about a post a Corps Teacher from the class of 2007 posted. You can find his post here. I also responded to his post here. To make a long story short Mr. Barnes said that he could not understand why some students would fall asleep in school, put their head down, act out, or behave in a manner inappropriate for school until he learned of the devastating affects and effects that poverty has on children.[1] Do not assume that the student is lazy, apathetic, or dumb, or ignorant. Ask the student, “Why are you …” Children who live in poverty lack culture, discipline, formal language, socialization, and other skills the middle and wealthy classes take for granted. You, MTC teachers, bring culture to the Delta. Please do not penalize a student by subjugating him/her to assumptions or stereotypes that you may have about Blacks (they are lazy, rude, scary) because, as Mr. Barnes said, students who live in poverty, Black, White, Indian, Asian and others, behave in an uncultured manner; it is poverty, not race, that facilities lack of knowledge about middle class norms. Rather than blame the student for what s/he does not know teach the student the appropriate way.
3. Become a part of the community.
Coach a sport, an after school program, shop at their grocery store, visit their church, go to school games, what ever it is that you do, “Get involved” in the community: That is where you will see with your own eyes the real lives of these students.
4. Never break the trust that you have earned.
You could break the trust that it took a year or so to build in one act. These “critical needs” students are survivors. That is their mentality Mr. Barnes said: they’ve got to survive on the bus coming to school; they’ve survive going home; many times they’ve got to survive in the home. Imagine how devastating would it be to survive a bond broken by someone he or she opened himself or herself up to? Imagine how long it would take before another “other” could be trusted again? Or, would be trusted again?
5. You have to love your students.
Not the paternalistic “love” that American slave owners claimed they possessed for their human property, nor the “love” that White Mississippians claimed to have for the Black Mississippians whom they separated via de sure and de facto segregation. But, teachers must display an empathic love. A love that shows, yes I am the teacher but I respect you, the student, I understand that you have to work to help pay the bills because your mother is sick, I understand that have to baby sit your sister and brother as if you were the parent, I understand that you have to say awake because your mother’s boyfriend (who is the same age as your mother and both of them are twelve years older than you) tries to sleep with you, I understand that you have no food to eat because your mother sells the welfare card to the drug dealer, I understand. You, as the teacher must love, and show tough love when necessary, so that they will believe you, the teacher, when you say, “The cycle of poverty and hopelessness can and will stop with you but you have got to work and work hard and persevere. You have got to be resilient.”
[1] Please see Dr. Ruby Payne’s A Framework for Understanding Poverty for more information about the culture of poverty. Since the Delta dynamics include generational poverty that results from slavery I recommend Dr. Joy Leary's Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing.
